Grey Gardens

Seeing the way they live now, you wouldn't say so, but Edith Bouvier Beale and her 56-year-old daughter Edie are upper-crust ladies. After all, they are related to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Edith used to be a well-known singer. In their dilapidated country house called Grey Gardens, only a few old photographs and a painted portrait recall that bygone era full of beauty and promise. Today, mother and daughter live as eccentrics amidst a terrible mess, secluded from the rest of the world. They spend a lot of time arguing, but they are devoted to each other in spite of it all. Both still dream of fame and attention - two things that the Maysles Brothers have granted them by making \i Grey Gardens\i0 . Shot in direct cinema style, this critically acclaimed documentary raises quite a few questions: do the directors shamelessly encroach on the women's lives like voyeurs? To what extent are they manipulated by the Beales, and does their film preserve the myth? Or have they made an unusual, truthful portrait of two lost souls who have known better times, but are still craving romance and their big break?